ABSTRACT

Diabetic mellitus is a metabolic disorder resulting from a defect in insulin secretion , insulin action or both . The deficiency of insulin leads to chronic hyperglycemia with disturbances of carbohydrate , fats  and protein metabolism. Kigelia Africana is a sausage tree known to have medicinal values. The aim of this work is to evaluate the hypolipidemic and antioxidant capacity of the plant , methanol leaf extract of kigelia Africana which was used for the study. The leaves were ground into a powdered form , weighed  and soaked with 500ml of methanol for 72hours. It was filtered and the filtrate was concentrated using rotary evaporator at 30 degrees centigrade. Alloxan was induced into 15 male wister albino rats and 5 male wister albino rats were used for the normal control group. They were grouped into four groups : group 1 which was the normal contol group , group 2 was the diabetic rats not treated  , group 3 the diabetic rats treated with the standard drug (Glibenclamide) , group 4 diabetic rats treated with 500mg/kg body weight of the extract of kigelia Africana orally for 14 days. The rats were bled and their blood sample were collected and assayed for the biochemical parameters. The result showed that there was a significant decrease (p<0.05) inTAG for  the group four which received the  plant extract compared to the normal in group one. For total protein it showed a significant decrease (p<0.05) in the total protein level of the treated groups compared to the normal.The results obtained in GPX study when compared to the normal control showed a significant decrease (p<0.05) in the group four treated with the extract.An  increase (p<0.05) not too significant was observed in the test group 4 MDA  treated with the plant extract compared with other groups.